Contagion, Culture & the Global South

This working group offers a creative platform to discuss the historical, social, and cultural underpinnings of contagion across different texts and contexts. Although contagion has garnered significant attention from fields related to public health and even the history of STM, the working group opens newer pathways to discuss how contagion interacts with indigenous cultures and communities across the globe, with an added emphasis on the Global South. It invites critical discussions on narratives dealing with contagious outbreaks, which include but are not limited to: literary fiction, non-fiction, visual culture, public and private (im)material archives, critical texts and emerging scholarship pertaining to a newer understanding of contagion from the beginning of the modern era. Such a dialogue elucidates the metahistory of contagion from alternative vignettes. The group draws on the conveners’ strength in the domain of health humanities, cultural studies, gender studies, subaltern studies and critical theories to raise important questions on our perceived understanding [and the lack] thereof contagion.
 

The working group invites discussion papers from both established academics and ECRs across the disciplines of history, humanities, social sciences and even public health. The pla form shall guide participants to navigate through the contemporary explosion in narratives surrounding contagion post-COVID-19 and its historical, cultural and literary intertextualities in the past. Overall, it encourages dialogue in the form of oral presentations, poster and snippet presentations and book discussions touching contagion as its core element.